


Stuck

by foxhat



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Loop, Angst, Battle of Trost District Arc, M/M, POV Jean Kirstein, Trost Arc Spoilers, mostly Jean being sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-20
Updated: 2015-03-20
Packaged: 2018-03-18 19:13:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3580770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxhat/pseuds/foxhat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by barleytea’s time loop au, where Jean is stuck in a loop of three years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stuck

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this late at night in a few hours so sorry for it being so angsty.  
> You can always find me on tumblr, my name is twomillionfreckles, so come and talk to me!  
> Also I'm not sure how to put links in here so I'll just add the url of barleytea's time loop au post because it is cool and you should check it out: http://barleytea.tumblr.com/post/62215959506

There is broken glass and dirt and blood spread out across the uneven cobblestones, and Jean can’t feel relieved that the titans are gone. He knows what will happen, and he knows there’s no way to change it (he has already tried so many times). He walks through the middle of the road and listens to glass crunching under his leather boots, but it’s not enough to distract his thoughts. He remembers every single time he has walked this road, could count exactly how often he has rounded this corner, but there are some memories that are stronger than others.

 

The first time, for example, is one he remembers quite well. Not because it was the hardest, definitely not, but there’s a thing about first times that always makes you remember them ( _Marco looking at him; Jean looking back and noticing those fucking freckles; Marco’s smile in an empty room; Marco’s hands on his skin and hot breaths in the dark_ ). Sometimes, Jean wishes he could forget all of them.

Because despite all those first times he’s had with Marco, there will also be the first time he has walked this road, rounded this corner, seen the crumpled body against the wall.

 

 _Where are your freckles_ , is the first thing he thinks, because he is so very pale. “Marco?” he asks. How can he be sure it’s him when he can barely spot the freckles?

“Is that you?” he asks, but by then he has already noticed the undercut and the parted hair, the very light dots across the bridge of his nose, his fingers curling around the edge of–

 

                            his body.

 

Oh, god. The cloth around Jean’s mouth feels too tight and for a moment he can’t breathe. He can’t breathe and he’s suffocating and _Marco is lying dead in front of him_.

“If you have a name for this one, it’d be helpful to pass it along.”

There’s a woman walking towards him but he barely sees it. His hands are shaking and Marco is dead.

 

It takes him days to process the image of Marco’s corpse, the blood on the ground filling up the empty space where his right half used to be. It would have taken Jean months to get over the shock, but he doesn’t get months.

 

Days after Marco’s death, he finds himself back in the trainee corps. For the second time, he has to live through the trainee days, the attack on Trost, and eventually he has to round the corner and look at Marco’s body. He panics even more then, _because what is going on_ , and his hands are shaking again, but then there’s the woman asking Marco’s name and Jean is pulled back to the present. She sounds harsh, but not cold, and she tells him there’s no time to mourn yet, and he gives her the name of his first best friend. She leaves him, and he stands there for hours more.

 

That isn’t the hardest time, though. The hardest is the time after that, the third time he has to look at the body and search for freckles, because that is when he realises he is stuck in this loop.

 

After that there are the times he tries to break the repetition, tries to find a way out, breaking rules and messing up orders. When that doesn’t work, and the image of Marco’s corpse burns into his retina every time he blinks, he tries to save him. It starts with sticking to Marco’s side, making sure they are together when the wall is breached, but somehow they always end up separated. After that he tries to convince Marco to leave the trainee corpse, to stay home, to help his mother, to do anything but joining the military. He fails each and every time, and when one time Marco looks at him as if he is crazy and their relationship never passes the stage of being vague acquaintances, he stops.

 

One time he goes AWOL and takes his 3D maneuver gear with him, sticking to Marco’s every move when the titans attack Trost. Still, there is nothing he can do and he has to watch as a titan plucks Marco from the roofs, sets its teeth into his flesh and rips. The titan just drops him after that, as if he is that insignificant, and the last rattling, sobbing breaths are enough for Jean never to try this again.

 

(He still remembers it, though)

 

There have been darker, more desperate times as well, things he doesn’t really want to think about.

The stench of death becomes more solid and it pulls him back to the now. He has already accepted that there is no way to avoid this. Whatever he does or doesn’t do, he will always end up here:

just around the corner, his eyes on Marco’s corpse, his hands shaking.

“Marco?” he asks, because it doesn’t matter how many times he’s seen this, the shock never fades. Just like all those times before, Marco doesn’t respond, and Jean steps closer. He counts the freckles he can see and follows the crumples in his jacket with his eyes.

When the woman arrives, the numbness has already set in, and Jean looks at her with dead (but not _dead_ , like Marco) eyes as he tells her Marco’s name.

“Thank you,” the woman tells him, and she sounds sincere. It’s not for the first time he wonders if she has lost anyone as well (probably, because so many people have died). She turns around and walks away, and Jean looks back to Marco.

“I’ll see you in a few days,” he jokes, but he doesn’t laugh (his hands are still shaking).

  
  


He is three years younger again, and they are standing in neat rows as a man with dark shadows under his eyes speaks to them about discipline and what it means to join the military. Jean has heard the story too often, and he knows all the names before anyone has ever introduced themselves, but at least there’s one thing he can look forward to.

He waits patiently as Keith Shadis carries on with his speech, and he waits some more as he calls all the names and checks everyone off his list. It isn’t until Shadis tells them to go to the dinner hall and everyone starts moving, that someone bumps into his shoulder.

“Oh, I’m sorry!”

Jean remembers the first time this has happened, how he had grumbled an annoyed response because he was tired and tense, but now he turns to look at the smiling boy standing behind him.

“My name is Marco,” he says, and Jean feels a smile tugging at the corner of his own lips as he accepts Marco’s hand to shake it. “Jean,” he says, feeling a little better, because at least he has this, at least he has those three years.

 

 


End file.
